1. Field of the Technology
This technology pertains generally to smart wearable devices and more specifically to systems, devices and methods for automatically configuring the smart wearable device in response to automatically identifying the need for new capabilities using a system of non-wearable and wearable sensor and processing devices with location context capture and environment classification.
2. Discussion
Users of smart devices are able to enhance the capabilities and performance of their devices by manually installing new and updated software, applications, etc. However, the user of the device must be aware of the particular software program or application that is needed for enhancing or enabling their device's capabilities or the user must be notified that there is a particular software program or application that is needed for enhancing or enabling their device's capabilities. For devices that are trusted to monitor the health of the user, it is desirable for that device to automatically sense when it needs new capabilities to perform an appropriate task and then automatically acquire what it needs to perform the task properly.
To this end, the location and environmental context of a wearer of a wearable sensor device can be relevant to the function of the sensors of the device and the interpretation of the data that is produced by that device. In addition, the suitability of the associated functions provided by the wearable sensor device and networked wearable and non-wearable devices can also be influenced by the current environment of the wearer. The suitability of device functions and the interpretation of the sensor data produced by the wearable device may change as the environmental context of the wearer changes.
For example, an audible notification from a device could be inaudible in an environment of loud noise or music and therefore ineffective. A light notification could also be lost in an environment of bright sunlight and missed by the user. A heated haptic notification may not be noticed by a hot wearer in an environment that is very hot. Likewise, a loud audio notification may not be appropriate in a quiet environment such as in a library.
Accordingly, there is a need for wearable devices and systems that have programming that can account for the environment of the wearer using sensor control, sensor data interpretation, output control and remote device control so that the smart wearable device can update itself with the appropriate software given its environment and user's needs.